Some of you kids are little spoiled lazy entitled brats! In the 80's we had 2 classes, stock and modified. Stock class used a 27 turn sealed can brushed motor. You couldn't adjust timing. Our speed controls didn't have boost. Our batteries were all nicads and stock class was limited to 6 cells. Those classes all came down to car setup and driver. There was a huge difference in speed between them and modified. Keep in mind 25 years ago, those 4-5 minute runtime batteries were around $35 and stock motors were also around $30-$35. We had to clean our motors out after every run and replace brushes from time to time. The trick back then was partially luck over how strong the motor was you bought, how carefully you broke in it and how well you geared it. We had a couple of brush options, one of which would advance your timing by 6 degrees by cutting half of the brush surface off. Anther brush option gave you more low end at the expense of top end. They all had their trade offs and none of them was a huge difference. Maybe a pinion tooth or so. If you wanted to spend even more money you could buy a battery pack with matched cells and then build it yourself. We had SC, SCR's and SCE cells. The SC was the standard everyday crap battery. The SCR was the higher punch battery and the SCE with it's whopping 1400 mah rating was the endurance battery. To help with runtime we got our cars as light as possible. No added weight to help traction. No difference in tire compounds and no tire inserts were used.

Modified class allowed any motor that wasn't a stock motor which means any turn motor you felt worked for you. Batteries were 7 cell nicads. You didn't just install the fastest motor you could because you might not finish the race. You also had to work out if you preferred a single wind, double, triple, or potentially quad turn motor for your track. Brushes wore out even faster. Speed controls didn't have timing control. Motors back then were anywhere from $45 for a "slow" modified to around an average of $60 and well above for the serious racer. Keep in mind I'm talking about mid to late 80's dollars here.

You guys have it good now so don't expect any sympathy from me when it comes to who should pay a few extra dollars so they won't be allowed to cheat anymore. Do it like we used to do it and pay an equivalent amount for it all accounting for today's dollar values and see how different it is. One thing applies today that applied back then too. If you don't agree with it, don't do it. Keep in mind I'm still leaving out other things such as radio crystals, and frequency conflicts, not to mention the fact that my radio cost me $115 in 1986!